Kanye West has spent the last few years proving that he has tremendous skills when it comes to music production, rapping, singing, performing live and appreciating art and design. When "Runaway," his short film that just premiered a few days ago, finally gets a full audience, West will be able to confidently add "film director" to his incredible resumé. Plenty of rappers have made the transition from spitting behind the microphone to acting in front of the camera (and some, like Tupac and Ice-T, have done it with incredible skill and grace), but there are a select few MCs who have successfully made the transition from the recording studio to the director's chair.

In fact, it's an extremely small fraternity that only includes a select and elite group of performers.

Ice Cube

The paragon of excellence when it comes to a rap-to-film transition, Ice Cube made the transition from angry young man to powerful Hollywood player. He has produced a number of huge hits on film and television (including the recent TBS hit "Are We There Yet?") and has found himself in the director's chair twice. The first time, it was for the under-loved film "The Player's Club" (which Cube also wrote), and he recently directed the sports documentary "Straight Outta L.A." for ESPN.

RZA

The Wu-Tang Clan chief has been slowly working his way up the ladder in the film world, appearing in a number of films as an actor and providing film scores for the likes of Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino. His directorial debut "The Man With the Iron Fist" will be hitting screens soon, and there is supposedly an unreleased film surrounding RZA's Bobby Digital character lying around his house somewhere.

That is indeed exclusive company, and should Kanye acquit himself well with "Runaway," will the offers to direct other projects be that far behind? Hey, we hear "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" could use some help.